


With Hope Prevailing

by blacktofade



Category: Terminator Salvation (2009)
Genre: Angst, First Time, M/M, human/machine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-24
Updated: 2009-07-24
Packaged: 2017-10-24 18:28:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/266543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacktofade/pseuds/blacktofade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is Kyle Reese's stay at the Resistance base before he's sent into the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Hope Prevailing

“Clear!”

Another shock rocks through John Connor’s body, making it convulse and come alive briefly. Briefly isn’t good enough, though. They need him conscious and back on his feet, because there are not enough men like him in the world; men who have enough courage to be willing to die for a cause; men who still have visions of a future that could be, one that’s free from Cyberdyne’s monstrous grasp.

A constant beep continues to swirl around Kyle’s body, making him hold his breath that little bit longer. If this keeps up, he’ll pass out.

“Clear!”

A third shock is delivered into John’s open chest, where his new heart now sits. One beat, two, and then the continuous hum stops and is replaced by intermittent bleeps. John’s alive, and that’s worth breathing for, so Kyle fills his lungs with an air that might just smell fresher, but perhaps that’s his imagination.

Kyle’s standing just outside of the makeshift room they’re using to perform John’s heart surgery in and he thinks it’s ironic that his own beating heart has been stuck in his throat for the past — god knows how long — while waiting for news about John’s state of being. Kyle hardly knows him, but the man is a hero among men, and Kyle doesn’t know if he’s ready to see another hero fall and join the already fallen.

A few feet away, a woman whom Kyle met only briefly, but knows is called Blair, is consoling Kate, holding her close and probably whispering comforting messages in her ear. Closer to him, Marcus stands ramrod straight with an unreadable expression on his face. Kyle once thought he knew that face, but now it’s the face of a stranger. Their time spent surviving together seems almost meaningless now. As much as Kyle wants to believe Marcus is on their side, he can’t rid himself of the trace of hesitancy that lingers in his mind. Marcus is a machine, he’s one of _them_. He’s what they’re fighting against, he’s part of the reason why Kyle’s father isn’t there with a hand on his shoulder to say, “John’ll make it, son; don’t you worry”.

There are a few seemingly never-ending minutes before a man, in what Kyle thinks is meant to pass as scrubs, walks out of the operating room. He looks somber and there are traces of blood on his shirt; Kyle can’t decipher if it’s John’s or some unlucky person before him. They all turn looking expectantly at the surgeon and wait for the news they don’t know if they want to hear or not.

“He’s lucky there were casualties that came in just a few moments after you arrived back here, because we were able to find someone with John’s same blood type, who agreed to give John his heart, saying it was more important to have it inside of John than himself. We managed to interchange their hearts successfully and John is unconscious, but stable, for the moment. He’s in need of further medical attention, but we can’t offer that here, as you can see,” he waves a hand to the tent behind him. “You’ll be dropped off back at base and he’ll be able to receive the care he needs.” He doesn’t hang around, obviously up to his elbows, literally, in wounded fighters. He nods at them then disappears back behind the tarp veil.

Kyle can hear someone sobbing with what must be relief, but it sounds like it’s coming from a distance. He runs a hand through his hair because he doesn’t know what else to do. Once again, he wishes his father were here because he could do with a hug — his knees don’t feel like they can support him any longer. His legs are shaking with adrenaline and just when he thinks they’ll actually give way, a hand wraps around his upper arm and squeezes slightly.

Kyle looks up to find Marcus offering a crooked smile, but doesn’t smile back. He pulls his arm away from the half-machine’s grip and takes a step back, just out of reach. He accidentally knocks into Kate, who’s still gently crying away her worry, and whispers, “Sorry”.

She glances at him, looking surprised that he’s still there, takes in a shaky breath, then folds him into a hug that reminds him of the hugs his mother used to give him. Kate’s hair smells like gasoline and long nights spent waiting for John to return home safely. Her pregnant belly presses into his hip and as he wraps his arms around her, finally taking the offered comforting he so desperately needs, he swears he can feel the being inside her kick out.

The baby hasn’t even been born yet and it’s already fighting. At least it won’t be a shock when it arrives into a world of war, a world of man versus machine. Kyle tries not to think of machines because there’s one behind his back, and he’s sure it’s wearing an expression that’s far too human for him to pretend isn’t.

*

The ride in the helicopter on the way to, what Kyle guesses is the main Resistance base, is tense. John is still unconscious, lying the opposite side of where Kyle is sitting, and Kate is crouched down between them, holding John’s hand with a white-knuckled grip. Kyle knows this probably isn’t the first time John has had a run in with death, but he also knows that it probably never gets easier for Kate.

Blair is sitting on Kyle’s-right of John, silently staring out of the open door of the chopper, her hair whirling about her face like Medusa’s snakes. He’s afraid to meet her gaze as she turns towards him, obviously feeling his stare, as he’s afraid she’ll turn him to stone. Kyle watches from the corner of his eyes as Blair moves to look at Marcus instead, offering him a tight-lipped smile; Marcus smiles back and Kyle is just old enough to notice the familiarity of it, understanding that there’s something going on between them. If Blair wants to be a traitor, that’s her problem, because Kyle doesn’t have the strength to be angry with more than just the machines right now.

Marcus turns his head, as though he’s going to try to talk to him, but Kyle averts his gaze, so he’s back to looking at John and Kate’s intertwined fingers. It makes it easier for him to ignore the way Marcus keeps trying to help, but Kyle remembers that ever since Marcus showed up in LA he’s been nothing but trouble, so what should make this instance any different?

Trouble this time comes in the form of a, “How you doing, kid?” yelled to the side of his head. Kyle pretends he can’t hear him over the thundering of the blades spinning above them, even though Marcus is sitting right next to him. Without taking much notice, Kyle slips his left hand down to clasp Star’s smaller one in his own. She looks up at him with a sadness in her eyes that makes him wish he knew how to be nicer to people, but then she blinks, squeezes his hand, and turns to watch the cities burning far below them and he realizes that in this world, it doesn’t make any difference.

*

When they arrive, Kyle stays by Star’s side, puffing out his chest slightly because the one thing he’s learnt is that first impressions decide how people treat each other; they decide if someone will pull you away from a machine, or push you towards one. He glares at anyone who even dares to turn their gaze down towards them as they walk through the underground corridors and grows annoyed when Star erases his hard work with her bright smiles. He can hardly stand it when they come across a girl called Ellie who’s perhaps only a year or so older than Star — though she has the war-heavy face of a woman thrice her age — and she gives Star a sticker in the shape of the sun. Star smiles at her as she sticks it to the brim of her hat, right next to the large seven-legged star pin, and Kyle can tell that they’ll get along like peas in a pod, which hurts him more than he’d like to admit. Star might not say a lot, but that doesn’t mean they’re not close. He tries his hardest not to glare at Ellie, for Star’s sake.

They’re given a short tour, which Kyle actually rather enjoys because he feels slightly safer surrounded by military personnel, plus, it’s been a long while since he’s seen a place as high-tech. He’s used to crumbling buildings and drinking drain water; he’s used to urinating onto cracked sidewalks with Star behind him, watching his back. What he’s not used to is privacy, so when he’s shown to a room of his own, he can’t find his voice to say that he’s spent too much time alone already, that he’d rather bunk up with a terminator than sleep by himself. It’s not like there’s a lot of space for him to occupy, though; the room is smaller than Kyle would have expected, but it’s got corners that the overhead light doesn’t quite reach and it scares the shit out of him.

Star gets the room next to him, which makes him feel marginally better, but that’s shot to hell when she’s told that she gets to share with Ellie. Did they think they were doing him a favor by giving him some space? Did they think he’d be relieved because he’ll finally get to do the things that normal teenage boys do? Kyle doesn’t even know what it means to be a _normal teenage boy_ , let alone embody one.

*

The first night, he almost knocks himself unconscious because he’s too busy holding his breath while trying to decipher the noises from the creaking walls. He lies — still in his street clothes, because he’s not used to sleeping out of them — as quietly as he can in the darkness, with every metallic slam of a door sending his heart racing, and by the time someone bangs on his own door to signal that it’s time to get up, he feels worse than when he first crawled into bed.

That morning — though it’s only a guess because he hasn’t yet seen the daylight — he takes the first almost normal shower he’s taken in years. He’s given instructions to turn the water off while he lathers soap over his skin, but — just this once, he tells himself — he allows the shower to run that little bit longer. He’s sure the novelty will wear off soon enough, so there’s plenty of time in the future to conserve. His way of thinking obviously isn’t right, because when he steps out of the bathroom he’s given a lecture by a man who calls himself Giles.

He feels as though the shower is pointless, though, because he dresses back into the dirty clothes he was wearing before. The only thing different is that he smells foreign underneath — he’s not used to the fresh, clean scent — and he can bite his thumbnail without crunching on sand at the same time.

When he finally remembers where the mess hall is, breakfast is already over and he doesn’t know who to ask for food. Oddly enough, he’s comforted by the sound of his stomach growling. He’s missed so many meals while on the streets that it’s like falling into the open arms of a familiar friend. When lunch rolls around, he finds himself in a line for food he can smell but cannot see. He can’t figure out what it is because the only foods he knows the smells of are road kill and rotting supermarket food.

It turns out to be some sort of broth, and he gets a small lump of bread to dip into it. He carries his bowl to an empty table, because he can’t find Star amongst the sea of people, and begins to eat in silence. He’s just soaking up the last remnants of his less-than-flavorful soup with his bread when someone sits on the opposite side of his table. He looks up, mouth full, and blinks when he finds Marcus in front of him. He looks back down quickly and tries to continue eating as though he hasn’t even realized Marcus is there.

“How are you settling in?” Marcus asks, sounding genuinely concerned.

Kyle answers with a clipped “Fine,” after he swallows the last of his meal and moves to take his bowl to the cleaning station. A hand reaches across the table and wraps around his wrist with superhuman strength. Kyle looks at the hand like he’s never seen one before and doesn’t know whether he should be afraid that Marcus could crush his bones into powder without even putting effort into it, or not. He settles for _not_ and tugs his arm back sharply.

Kyle hates the feeling that floods his insides when Marcus’ hand falls away, like Kyle’s just blown a tiny, irritating ant from off his skin, because deep down he know Marcus would never hurt him. He wishes Marcus would stop looking at him like that, because Kyle almost believes he’s wrong to be angry with him.

*

He feels a tiny bit better when he wakes up on the second day.

He had still woken up every few hours, waiting for the moment the bunker fell away and dumped him back on the streets, but he slept more than the night before, and so feels slightly more rested when he peels his eyes open as the banging on his door starts. He’s curled up on his side, with one foot hanging over the edge of the bed, and when he finally recognizes where he is, he shifts to lie on his back, stretching his arms above his head and accidentally knocking his knuckles into the tangle of metal that passes for a headboard. He pulls his arms back down so he can inspect his hands to make sure they’re not scraped up, but he gets distracted as his eyes focus to a point past his perfectly okay knuckles.

His gaze falls to where the sheets are tented slightly with his morning erection and it’s an old reflex he needs to grow out of when he looks around the room, as if expecting to find someone hiding in one of the corners. He’s all alone, but on this occasion, being alone is a blessing. He doesn’t remember the last time he actually got himself off with his hand; the only release he’s used to is the one where he wakes up sweaty and sticky from a dream that includes nubile women with golden hair and sky-blue eyes. He’s always been much too afraid of being caught in the act by Star to actually do anything about any erections he’s had since they met a few years back.

Now, though, he lets his right hand slip under the bedclothes and it’s an embarrassingly short amount of time before he finishes, wiping his hand off on the mattress.

When he gets up and leaves the room, he half expects the people he passes in the hallways to know what he’s just done and call him out on it. Fortunately, no one spares him a second glance, and for that, he’s thankful.

*

On the morning of the third day, Kate Connor gives birth to a healthy baby girl and it becomes the talk of the Resistance base over breakfast. From overhearing conversations, Kyle learns that the child looks exactly like her mother.

After that day’s lunch, John Connor comes to find him, even though Kyle is sure he’s meant to be in bed resting still. The thing Kyle _isn’t_ sure about, is why John’s come to see him, of all people, but John just smiles warmly at him in a way Kyle’s never seen before and asks if he would like to see his daughter. Kyle doesn’t know if he actually _does_ want to see the baby, but John looks so proud that he can’t do anything but follow him to the medical bay, paying more attention to his shoes than what’s going on around him.

The medical bay smells too strong for his liking and when they walk through the door, a man, whom Kyle suspects is a doctor, frowns, and asks John why he isn’t resting still. John shrugs him off with a wave of his hand and continues to lead Kyle to Kate’s bedside.

Kate looks absolutely radiant and Kyle doesn’t remember the last time he saw a more beautiful woman. Even though Kate’s red hair is sticking up in all directions and is still clinging to her forehead with dried sweat, she looks perfect to Kyle; John is a lucky man to have her as his wife. He grows nervous when John steps aside and, with a hand on his back, urges him closer to the bed. Kyle shuffles forward awkwardly, not really knowing what he’s meant to say to someone who’s just pushed a six-odd pound being out of them.

“Congratulations,” he says, but falls silent again as he catches sight of the small face peering up at him through a bundle of cloth resting in the crook of Kate’s arm. Everyone on the base is right: she looks exactly like her mother. She has bright green eyes that could break him in a second if they were to tear up with him still in the room. She has hardly any hair, but what little she has, is as orange as the sunsets he’s used to seeing over a broken LA. He skin is pale, but she has a healthy flush over her cheeks that makes her look so innocent that Kyle wishes the war between man and machine would end, just for her sake.

Kyle jumps when John places a heavy hand on his shoulder and he has to swallow twice before he can clear his throat to ask, “W-what have you called her?”

Kate looks lovingly at her daughter as she says, “Sarah, after John’s mother.”

Kyle nods his head, as though he comprehends, but really, he doesn’t. He’s never understood why people would name their children after their own parents, because Kyle believes that everyone should be given a blank slate when they’re born. If they’re given the name of someone who’s already existed, they have to live up to everybody else’s expectations before they’ve even learned to crawl.

John squeezes his shoulder slightly. “Would you like to hold her?” he says, obviously unable to decipher the look on Kyle’s face that says he’s never held a baby before in his life. What if he drops her? What if she starts crying because his clothes smell like war and sweaty teenage boy?

Kyle shakes his head because he doesn’t think he’s ready to be the one to destroy their child’s illusion that the world isn’t that bad of a place. Sarah is smiling toothlessly at him now, as though laughing at his insecurities, and when she brings her hand up to her mouth so she can suck happily on her fingers, he feels completely vulnerable. He’s never felt this way before and he doesn’t like the feeling one bit.

“Please,” John says, giving his shoulder another squeeze, “You won’t understand why, but it would mean the world to me if you’d hold my daughter.”

“I’ve never-” starts Kyle, but John bends down and gently scoops Sarah up anyway. He turns to Kyle, who still can’t take his eyes off the small girl, and holds her out.

“Curl one arm so her head can rest in your elbow and keep the other around her body to keep her stable.” Before Kyle can argue, John has maneuvered the baby into his arms and he’s left holding John and Kate’s pride and joy stiffly. Sarah gurgles slightly, peering up at Kyle, still gumming on her fingers without a care in the world.

There’s absolute silence in the room, but when Kyle looks up, he finds John and Kate watching him, smiling gently, their fingers entwined atop the sheets of Kate’s bed. Their gazes make Kyle uncomfortable, but he lets his lips curl up in a small smile to say that he’s okay, really, everything’s just fine.

There’s a gentle tug on the scarf around his neck and he looks back down to find Sarah curling her chubby, saliva covered fingers around the material, pulling on it in fascination. After a few moments, she notices Kyle watching her and so moves her fingers to grab at his nose instead. Her skin smells like nothing he’s ever smelt before and she leaves little wet trails on his skin, where her fingers haven’t quite dried from their excursion into her mouth.

Carefully, he moves his arm around so he can extract her tiny hand from his face, but when he tries to move it away, the smile falls from her lips, and she crumples her face up, obviously upset. He panics because he doesn’t want to see her shed tears. He tries wiggling his fingers in front of her face to distract her from crying, but when that doesn’t work, he walks them up her torso, until he reaches her face, where he lightly presses against the end of her nose, and says “Beep!”

Sarah looks as though she doesn’t know how to react, but she no longer looks like she’s going to cry, so Kyle knows he’s done something right. There’s a soft snort of laughter, which he expects to have come from either Kate or John, but when he looks up, he finds them looking at someone over his shoulder. He turns his neck and sees Marcus just inside the doorway, with a faint smile on his lips.

“Cute kid,” Marcus says. Kyle knows he’s talking about Sarah, but he’s is looking dead into his eyes as he says it, making him feel patronized.

Marcus moves his gaze away and looks at John. “Giles said you wanted to see me?”

Kyle turns his head back around when John smiles and says, “Thought you might like to meet the newest member of the Resistance,” as he motions toward the small being in Kyle’s arms.

Kyle feels his stomach plummet downwards with the words. Sarah’s too small to have such a heavy weight hanging over her, it’ll crush her frail body. As if to protest against being thought of as frail, Sarah grabs a hold of his index finger, that’s still hanging over her face, and squeezes. Kyle smiles at her and she smiles back, because that’s all either of them know how to do at that moment.

*

On the morning of the fourth day, Kyle isn’t woken in the way he’s used to.

Instead of insistent banging on his door, there’s a screeching klaxon, that sends his heart into his throat in zero seconds flat. He throws the covers off him, thankful that he still hasn’t succumbed to the act of sleeping in just his underclothes, and pulls open his door to find people running every which way. The door next to him opens slowly and Star’s sleep-ridden face peers around the corner. At the sight of Kyle, she runs quickly to his side and takes a hold of his hand, as if to say “Don’t leave me alone.” He’s about to start walking, when Ellie’s face appears and she looks scared, real scare. Kyle knows she knows what the alarms mean, and if he wasn’t anxious before, he is now.

Without really thinking, he holds out his other hand, which Ellie latches onto with a surprising amount of readiness. Kyle squeezes their hands in encouragement and they make their way quickly in the direction everyone else is heading.

Everyone ends up heading into rec room two, which is only a few hallways away from Kyle’s room. John is at the front of the room, yelling about a security breech, something about machines being within four miles of their base, and that they need to take them out before they discover their hideout. Kyle moves around the edge of the room to avoid pulling Star and Ellie through the crowd. He lets go of their hands when they reach the corner next to John and tells them to stay together. Star looks at him like he’s just told her that he’s leaving for good, but he whispers that he promises he’ll be back and she moves her gaze to the floor instead.

Kyle edges his way to the front of the crowd, waiting for John to stop speaking, as the rest of the soldiers in the room start to distribute guns and ammo amongst themselves.

“John, I want to fight,” he starts, steeling his eyes as John turns to look at him.

The answer is evident in the leader’s eyes before he even confirms it with a firm, “No”.

“I have every right to protect this base, _sir_ , I live here, too, you know.”

“You are staying here, Kyle; that’s an order!” John shouts at him, leaving absolutely no room for argument. Kyle glares as much as he possibly can, but John doesn’t relent, he just turns away from Kyle and leads the rest of his men to fight. Kyle catches a glimpse of Marcus as the older man loads a gun, and he realizes that he’s still frowning as Marcus looks up and shrugs helplessly. In his head, he can hear Marcus saying, “Sorry, kid; that’s just the way things go,” and he hates the fact that he’s right.

*

Kyle waits with the girls in the mess hall, propping his head up on his elbow.

Star sits on the other side of the bench, a piece of paper on the table, scribbling away with some crayons Blair gave to her their first afternoon there. Kyle doesn’t know what she’s drawing, but he watches her, finally glad that she’s able to do something any child her age should be able to do. Ellie sits next to her, her arms folded on the tabletop, her face pressing down into them, as though she’s asleep. Kyle knows she isn’t because every now and then her left leg begins to jolt with a nervous tick she’s obviously acquired from sitting in this same room one too many times.

None of them eat, too busy wondering who will come back and who won’t.

Kyle is afraid that John will be the first one back because it hasn’t even been a week since the heart transplant and though he’s no doctor, he knows John needs more rest. Kyle worries for Kate and Sarah because he doesn’t know what they’ll do if they’re rendered husbandless and fatherless, respectively. Kyle’s been through the process of losing _his_ father and he wouldn’t wish it upon anyone, especially not baby Sarah. She needs a father who will say he’s knows best, even when he doesn’t; who won’t be able to say “No” to her when she’s older and has learnt how to make her eyes glisten just so; who will be around when she has her own children.

Kyle’s forehead thumps against the cold metal of the table as he drops his head from his hand, unable to do anything else. He hates that even his thoughts are plagued with death and dying, but it’s been that way for as long as he can remember, and he still hasn’t found a way to rid himself of them.

*

By the time Kyle hears John’s voice echoing through the tunnels, Star is asleep, stretched out on the seat next to Kyle with her head resting in his lap. Kyle is surprised, but thankful that John is still alive; he breathes a small sigh of relief, not just for himself. There are loud voices and the clattering of rubber soles against the concrete floors of the hallways outside; he wants to rush out to help those who have returned, but he hasn’t the heart to wake Star. He’s saved from the task when the door clangs open, scaring Star to high heaven with the noise — Kyle only just manages to keep her stable on the bench as she jolts upwards in shock — and two men, carrying a third, rush into the room. They set the, as far as Kyle can tell, unconscious man on one of the nearer tabletops and one of them moves to try to take a pulse.

John limps through the doorway, not half a minute after, ordering them to fetch a doctor, a mechanic, just anyone who knows how to fix things, but the looks the two soldiers give John tell Kyle that everyone is already too busy to help; the lifeless man is a lost cause.

Kyle knows Star has already seen too much death in her lifetime, so he whispers into her hair that they should leave. She looks at him, her forehead creased like the old, forgotten newspapers scattered around the streets of, what used to be, San Francisco, and nods. Ellie looks as though this is the first wounded person she’s ever seen, but Kyle knows that’s impossible because even the world around her is wounded, it’s just stitched up with little strips of red material, the only things able to show resistance against the world’s attempt to break apart into a million pieces.

With a hand on both Ellie and Star’s shoulders, he guides them away from the scene, though he’s unable to take his eyes off the man lying on the table. Kyle can’t see any blood and that scares him more than he thinks it should, because he only knows one person that doesn’t bleed, but if that’s Marcus, he shouldn’t care so much. Marcus is a machine, he’s not human, but telling himself that doesn’t help Kyle in the slightest.

*

For days after the attack, no one knocks on his door to wake him up, but it doesn’t matter, because he hardly sleeps, too busy listening to the pained voices littering the hallway outside his room. Star and Ellie moved their mattresses into his room the first night after the wounded return, for want of a place closer to familiarity, and it’s a tight squeeze, but Kyle never says a word, simply happy that he doesn’t have just the darkness to keep him company.

Apparently, they use the empty room next door as a makeshift morgue because people are carried in there, but Kyle never sees them leave. He doesn’t tell this to Star, but he’s sure she already knows, because whenever he looks over at her when he’s lying in bed, she’s staring at the shared wall between the two rooms, and she looks like she’s a million miles away, dreaming of a better time that’s filled with water balloons instead of bombs and water pistols instead of guns.

*

The third day after the attack, a list of the dead appears on the door of Star and Ellie’s old room, but it’s not until the fourth day that Kyle can bring himself to read it. There are a few names that he recognizes, but the one he thinks _should_ be on there _isn’t_ and it takes him a few beats to realize that the feeling spreading through his chest is relief. He asks around, trying to keep his inquiry casual and offhand, and finds out which room is Marcus’ (207), but doesn’t find out his health status.

It’s another day before he manages to reason with himself that it’s natural to want to know if someone — half machine, or not — is okay. He still has the image of the unconscious man on the table in the mess hall in his mind, so he’s surprised when his gentle — because, perhaps if he’s quiet enough, maybe he won’t hear — knocks earn him the treat of having the door swing open to reveal a serious-looking Marcus.

“Oh,” Kyle says, and, suddenly, it feels like he doesn’t have the strength to be angry with Marcus anymore. The fight is knocked out of him, like the time when Marcus accidentally knocked the wind out of him when he threw his heavier weight over Kyle to stop them from being spotted by the HK-aerial flying aimlessly though the streets of LA.

“Oh?” Marcus repeats, raising an eyebrow. “Oh: glad you’re alive, or, oh: shouldn’t you be dead?”

“Um, both? Not that I actually want you to be dead, or anything, I just,” Kyle takes a breath because his mind is a jumbled mess and he needs to organize his thoughts before he really puts his foot in it, “I just thought I saw them bring you in as one of the wounded, but I’m glad you’re here...” Kyle trails off, the word _here_ barely audible, just a ghost of a breeze over his lips, because it’s difficult for him to say. It’s hard for him to admit that perhaps he’s been wrong the entire time; that perhaps Marcus is still that same man — mechanical parts or not.

“Yeah, me too, kid,” Marcus says, staring at point to Kyle’s left. Kyle turns to see what he’s looking at and finds John Connor a few doors down, watching them, his face unreadable. When John notices they’re both watching him, he walks nearer to them, placing a heavy hand on Kyle’s shoulder when he’s close enough. Kyle thinks that John probably wants the hand to come across as friendly, or comforting, but it just makes Kyle uncomfortable. He’s too polite to shrug it off.

John and Marcus start to discuss the number of wounded men and women and how many able-bodied people remain in the base. Kyle doesn’t really want to stay around to hear their conversation, but John’s hand keeps him pinned in place.

Kyle is drawn back into the conversation when John says, “We need to get back out there. We need to set up a stronger perimeter to make sure they don’t stumble across us again. Next time we might not be so lucky to get a heads up.”

Marcus looks at John as though he already knows why John’s telling him, but it doesn’t twig for Kyle, until John expands upon the topic.

“You have the strength and stamina of ten of my men, Marcus. You and I could go out, lay out a better defensive system, and be back in time for dinner.”

Kyle frowns at the light tone of John’s words, as he knows there’s nothing light about what John is proposing; it’s dangerous, and possibly a suicide mission. There’s a look that passes between John and Marcus, which Kyle knows he definitely doesn’t understand, but then Marcus straightens his shoulders almost imperceptibly and nods his head.

“Good man,” John says to Marcus, before he claps Kyle on the shoulder and heads back in the direction he came.

Kyle stares at Marcus with a look he knows is akin to betrayal because Marcus has just agreed to an operation that Kyle is sure he won’t return from. _What about the people that care about you_? he shouts silently at Marcus with his eyes. _What happens to them if you don’t come back alive_? _What happens to me_? Marcus glances at him briefly and mutters, “Don’t look like that, kid; it was easier when you hated me.”

Kyle has heard enough. He turns away to head back to his own room, but Marcus catches a hold of the hood on his jacket and tugs hard enough to make Kyle stumble back a few paces. Kyle looks at him over his shoulder.

“I’ll come back,” Marcus says, forging his promises out of little white lies. “Perhaps not in one piece, but I’ll come back nonetheless.”

Kyle doesn’t say _Goodbye_ because as much as Marcus annoys him, Kyle never wants to say something so final to him.

*

Marcus was right when he said he’d come back, but Kyle’s just as right, because the state in which Marcus returns can hardly be called alive.

*

The day Marcus and John go to the upper levels to reinstate some of the older defenses, as well as set up more improved security, Kyle spends his time pacing in his room, which was hardly built for pacers, because it’s only three paces across, from wall to wall. Kyle uses it to practice his math skills — god knows he needs to — and runs through his three, six, nine, and twelve times-tables. Kyle never went to school, though his parents used to say how, if the machines hadn’t taken over, he would have made it into a university, like Harvford, no, Harvard, and would have made everyone in their family proud. But Kyle couldn’t even point to where Harvard used to be on a map, so he thinks his parents might have been lying to him. However, he’s never needed a school to tell him what’s wrong and what’s right, he learned that from growing up surrounded by fear and a need to survive.

He does the multiplications until they start losing meaning, and by that time, there’s a commotion in the hallway outside and he knows his wait is over. All that’s left to do is find out who, and how much, has returned.

With a metallic clang, he opens his door in time to see a small group of soldiers disappearing around the furthest corner to the right. Kyle tries his hardest not to run, but he hasn’t eaten all day and he’s in no state to control his impulses. He imagines running around the corner and finding Marcus, dirtied up, perhaps even missing a bit of his dermal covering, but with the same frown he always wears, whether he’s happy or upset. Kyle pictures himself walking up and shaking his hand, or slapping him on the shoulder in a manly, rough-and-tumble sort of way. Maybe Marcus would let his hard exterior crumble: he’d smile crookedly at Kyle, and Kyle would rush forwards and throw his arms around him, holding onto him as if everything were okay.

Except things never really seem to go the way Kyle imagines, so when he finally sprints around the corner, he accidentally knocks into someone twice his size and it sends him spiraling into the opposite wall. It takes him a moment to regain his bearings, but when he does, he finds John leaning heavily against the wall, not six feet from him, holding a cloth again a bleeding gash just above his eye. The man Kyle just bumped into is asking John if he’s hurt anywhere else, but John just keeps saying, “Not me, him!” and pointing towards a body on the floor.

Kyle swallows back his yell of “Marcus!” as he realizes who it is. He obviously makes some sort of noise above the racket of medics running to-and-fro, bellowing orders for more gauze and for someone to, please, help carry Lieutenant Wright to the infirmary, as John catches sight of him and says, “Someone get the kid out of here!” It annoys Kyle enough that he tries to fight against the cadet who manhandles him away from the scene, back towards his room, where he’s left standing outside his door with a warning not to interfere again. He wasn’t interfering, he says to the man’s broad back as it retreats, he just wanted to know if his friend was okay, and it’s nothing but the truth, because honestly, like it or not, Marcus _is_ his friend and he cares about what happens to him.

He slams his door as he goes back into his room, but he regrets it when he finds Star sitting on her mattress, looking at him like he’s one of the bad guys, a terminator, that’s come to take her away again. He looks at the floor as he says that he’s sorry, and doesn’t have the strength to go back to his pacing. Instead, he sits down heavily onto the side of his own bed, and rests his forehead against his knees.

He can still hear yelling down the hallway and he can’t quite seem to get the image of Marcus lying unnervingly still on the concrete floor out of his head.

*

It feels like forever before the next day comes.

He wakes, though he’s not quite sure he was ever asleep, panting and covered in sweat. The first thing in his mind is Marcus and his eyes fly open because there still hasn’t been any news and he wants to see if he’s able to sneak into the medical bay to find out the information for himself. Star and Ellie are still asleep as he slips as quietly as he can out the door and pads his way barefooted to where he remembers being taken by John when Kate had given birth to Sarah.

There’s no more shouting by people, but the medical equipment in the room is doing a fairly good job of filling the silence. There seems to be beeping all around him as he makes his way past rows of beds, looking for Marcus. The room is completely full of wounded soldiers from the attack not long ago, but he doesn’t recognize any of them as the man he’s searching for. There’s a petite nurse in handmade teal scrubs leaning over a soldier, changing the dressing covering a wound on the man’s neck. He’s going to wait until she’s finished, but she does a slight double-take at him over her shoulder and whispers — as if her using her normal vocal volume would wake the man Kyle knows is heavily sedated — “Yes?” at him.

He falters, grasping hopelessly for words. “I — I’m looking for — where’s Marcus? I mean, Lieutenant Wright?”

“Dear, he’s not in here; didn’t anyone tell you that he’s been moved?”

Kyle shakes his head numbly, not sure if he wants to hear the rest of what the nurse has to say.

“They put him back in his quarters; to make room for people who,” she trips over her words, “well, for the people who bleed.”

Kyle feels like yelling that just because Marcus doesn’t bleed, doesn’t mean he needs to be treated any differently, which catches him by surprise, because wasn’t he doing just that, up until recently? Instead, he thanks the kind woman for her time, and quickly exits the bay to head towards Marcus’ room.

The slap of his skin against the cold concrete floor sounds like the ticking of a clock, and he can’t help but count his steps with the beat, just anything to distract himself. When he reaches the door, a man, who might just be a mechanic, leaves and gives him a look that doesn’t bode well with him. He doesn’t even know if he’s allowed to just barge into Marcus’ room like this, but it doesn’t stop him from pushing the door open anyway.

It’s too dark to see inside the room, and he doesn’t stop to think twice when he flicks the overhead light on and frowns nervously as he finds Marcus lying on a bed, just as still as when Kyle first saw him lying on the floor of the corridor. He takes a step closer, not sure if Marcus is even alive or not, and reaches a hand out to press two fingers against Marcus’ dust-covered throat to find out. The skin is warm under his hand, which is an encouraging sign.

“He _is_ alive,” a hoarse voice from the corner of the room says.

Kyle spins around, reeling his hand back like he’s been caught touching something he’s not meant to, and finds John Connor looking worse for wear sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, watching him with a look that says he thinks that Kyle shouldn’t be there.

“I — I. I just — is he going to be okay?”

John tips his head back, to let it rest against the concrete. “I honestly don’t know. He’s alive, well his heart is beating, but nothing else is going on inside him.” He pauses as though trying to decide what else he should tell Kyle, then sighs and gives in as Kyle looks pleadingly at him.

Kyle waits for John to start speaking, letting his fingers brush surreptitiously over the sheets of Marcus’ bed for something he likes to believe is comfort.

“We were setting up a trip wire around the perimeter of the base when one of the smaller bots stumbled across us. It was acting strange, like it was malfunction, so Marcus thought it was safe to grab it so he could disable it completely, but before he could do that, it mutated — I’ve never seen anything like it in my life — and shot something, a dart, into Marcus’ neck. It didn’t do anything right away and we thought it was just meant for humans, because Marcus destroyed the bot, actually ripped it in half, tore the dart out of his neck, and carried on working. It wasn’t until we came back into the base that anything happened.”

“But what about your forehead?” Kyle asks, because he was sure John had been attacked also.

“What, this?” John says, motioning to the cut that has been stitched up since Kyle last saw it. “Well, whatever was shot into Marcus didn’t deploy until we started heading down into the tunnels, and as we were climbing down one of the ladders, Marcus suddenly just let go of the rungs and landed right on top of me. We tumbled a good four feet and I knocked my head against the floor in the fall, but since then, Marcus hasn’t move; it’s like they’ve shut him down or something.”

Kyle looks over his shoulder at Marcus, his gaze running over Marcus’ face, hoping for some sign of movement, but nothing changes.

“We’re going to open him up tomorrow and see if we can find anything.”

Kyle makes sure he’s still turned away from John as he flinches. The way John says “open him up” makes it sounds like Marcus is just some broken down car, where they can just pop the hood and fix up the engineering inside. Kyle thinks that life has a funny way of showing him he’s been wrong about treating Marcus harshly just because he’s part machine, because it seems to be throwing everything in his face all at once. It feels a bit like he’s drowning.

Kyle watches Marcus’ torso, waiting to see him breathe, but then realizes that Marcus doesn’t even have lungs, so he’ll be waiting for the rest of his life if he wants to see the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest. His fingers drift from the sheets to where Marcus’ hand rests neatly by his side on top of the covers. Just as he brushes his fingertips against Marcus’ own, John says, “You should be getting back; breakfast will be served soon.”

Kyle whips his hand back and turns to nod at John, blinking back his embarrassment. He really should know better, he thinks as he leaves the room, but no one’s ever told him what to do with feelings he shouldn’t have in the first place.

*

Kyle manages to slip into Marcus’ room for a second time that day, after he sees John in another part of the base, discussing what he and Marcus managed to set up, with another soldier. Kyle thinks he should feel bad for trying to sneak around John, but then it dawns on him that he should never have to feel guilty for trying to visit Marcus.

However, when he opens the door, he finds the lights already on and Blair sitting, her back to him, at Marcus’ side. Two of her hands are clenched tightly around one of Marcus’ own and her head is bowed, resting atop the tangle of fingers, as though she’s praying for Marcus to wake up.

Kyle doesn’t stick around long enough for her to notice his presence, he just backs out of the doorway and tries not to think about how he suspects Marcus would be happier if he roused from unconsciousness to see Blair, than if he woke up and saw him. Blair is a beautiful, strong woman, with everything to offer to Marcus; Kyle is just some scrawny teenager, who’s been holding a stupid grudge over him not being one hundred percent human. Kyle knows which one he’d choose if he were in Marcus’ position.

*

That night, Kyle waits until he’s sure both Star and Ellie are asleep before he quietly leaves them in favor of going to see Marcus, hoping that this will be the time that he’s actually allowed more than five minutes alone with him. The hallways are, thankfully, empty; the night patrollers obviously being somewhere else, and it doesn’t take long at all before he shuts himself in the darkness of Marcus’ room. He flicks the lights on, blinking against the headache-inducing luminosity, and quickly scans the room for any hidden John Connors or upset Blair Williamses, but there’s no one; just him and Marcus.

He walks over to the seat where Blair had been sitting earlier, and drops into it while letting his eyes take in damages Marcus has sustained. There are a few nicks and cuts over his hands and a large bruise blossoming over the temple closest to Kyle. He must have hit it on the floor after falling off the ladder, Kyle thinks, unable to stop himself from reaching a finger out to trace lightly around the blue and yellow mark.

“I suppose I should be thankful that you’re back, even if you aren’t conscious,” Kyle whispers, as if Marcus can hear. “If — when you wake up, don’t say ‘I told you so’, because if you do, I will knock you out again, personally.”

Kyle moves his finger to run down Marcus’ jaw, down his neck, to where the curve of his shoulder is. There’s a cut, deeper than any others Kyle has noticed on Marcus’ body, but even as Kyle watches, more of it heals up. Kyle gently prods it, fascinated by the way Marcus’ body works to heal itself, but the he gets distracted as his fingers move back up the throat, to where he can feel Marcus’ pulse, bold and strong as ever. It seems strange to Kyle to have someone as boisterous as Marcus laid out before him, completely still and silent. He takes his hand back and lets his eyes rove over the unconscious man’s face, liking the fact that there are no frown lines or tension creases, just smooth skin leading into the scruff of Marcus’ unshaven lower face.

Kyle has never really been able to grow a beard; he doesn’t shave, but the hair is so light it hardly shows up. He’s far younger than Marcus, though, so he thinks that perhaps there is hope for him yet.

He runs his blunt nails over the stubble, as if he’s scratching an itch for Marcus, but really he just enjoys the rough sound it makes, like sandpaper against wood. His dad used to have stubble all the time because he hated shaving, said it was too much hassle for someone like him. For someone always on the run, he meant. When Kyle used to hug him every night before going to sleep — just in case something happens in the night, his dad used to say — his beard would rub against Kyle’s cheek and make it sore, but having a sore face meant that he had his father’s presence with him while he slept. Kyle whispers all this to Marcus, but his throat tightens as the memories wash over him and he draws his hand back, not wanting ghosts of the past to disturb their alone time.

Kyle changes the subject quickly.

“They’re going to operate on you tomorrow to see if they can find what’s stopping you from waking up. If they get you sorted, I’ll come and visit and, well, if they don’t, I’ll do it anyway.” Kyle pauses, ears straining to the hallway outside, because he’s sure he just heard something. It dawns on him that he hasn’t been hearing things when the noise comes again and he realizes that there are footsteps heading his way.

Kyle stands, wondering if he should hide, or if the person outside will just walk right on past; he opts for turning out the light, then moving to the corner of the room where John Connor had sat before. If they come in, they might not see him right away, and it’ll buy him a few seconds before he’s yelled at for being out of bed.

He holds his breath as the sound of boots against concrete gets nearer…and then lets it go when they start fading in the other direction. Kyle knows he’s outstayed his welcome, so he waits a few more moments before he feels his way in the darkness to Marcus’ body and stands between the chair and the bed. Awkwardly, he leans forward and slides his arms to Marcus’ sides, so he can fall into a one-sided hug that makes him feel safer than he thinks it should. When he leans his face forward to rest his chin on Marcus’ shoulder, he accidentally knocks his forehead into Marcus’ brow. He breathes a curse over Marcus’ face and finds himself offering up whispered apologies to a man who can’t even hear, let alone respond.

“Sorry,” he says one last time before he steps back — accidentally stumbling over the chair he’s forgotten is there and making more noise than he planned — and leaves the room in a flurry of khaki clothing and throbbing skulls. He figures he won’t be able to sleep anyway, so instead of walking back to his room, he heads to the rec room, hoping that, there, he might be able to rationalize the change of heart he’s had about Marcus. Or maybe just find someone there with bigger problems, who is willing to spill their guts to him so he doesn’t have to think about his own issues.

Kyle’s never really thought himself as unlucky, but when he walks through the open doorway and finds that the only other person in the room is John Connor, he starts to think that maybe he is. It’s not that he dislikes John, he just doesn’t understand the man sometimes. They’re so different from one another, and John always seems to think he knows more about Kyle than even Kyle does, which drives Kyle insane.

John’s sitting on the ratty gray sofa that’s pushed against the left-hand wall, biting his thumbnail and looking, if Kyle is completely honest, like shit, like he hasn’t slept for a couple of days. He looks up upon Kyle’s entrance and drops his hand into his lap.

“Can’t sleep?” he asks and instead of bolting, like Kyle had previously thought about doing, he walks wearily to the couch and sits heavily in the open seat next to John.

“Sort of, sir” he responds, talking to his knees because he can’t quite bring himself to look John in the eyes.

“Been a hard week for you, hasn’t it?”

Kyle draws his feet up and wraps his arms around his legs in a pose that probably makes him look more vulnerable than he would like, but right now, he doesn’t care.

“Yeah, I guess,” he says, but then he thinks about John’s week, which consisted of heart surgery, fighting machines, and being half-crushed by a hybrid of human and terminator, and thinks that his hasn’t been half as bad compared.

“I’ve got some bad news for you, kid.” The floor seems to drop out from beneath Kyle and he turns his head to look at John because all he can think of is Marcus. John smiles sadly at him. “It’s going to get a whole lot worse; I can tell you that now.”

Kyle asks, “How do you know?” because he doesn’t understand why John thinks he’s so omniscient.

John breaks Kyle’s gaze, as if he’s ashamed about what he’s about to say, and rubs his forehead with his palm. “Because I’m the one that has the break the news to you.”

“What news?”

There’s a long pause.

“What news, John?” this time said with more force.

“We’re sending you back.”

“Back? Back where? To the streets? John, you know how crazy it is out there, you can’t make me go back!” Kyle’s voice rises with panic and he lets go of his legs, dropping them to the floor with a dull thud of his boots against the concrete. John looks back up at him with horror in his eyes.

“No, no, no, not the streets” he says, waving his hand around, as though trying to disperse the notion. “It’s hard to explain—”

“Well you had better try, John, because my life isn’t some game; I need to know what’s going to happen to me. Are you taking me away from Star? I can’t leave Marcus without saying goodbye; he saved my life, he’s my friend, I—” he stops before he lets his mouth run away with him, and realizes that he’s standing now, with anger coursing through his veins. John gets to his feet, too, obviously not liking the uneven playing field of having Kyle tower over him.

“You’re going to be assigned a task that no one else on this base can do. We all have to make sacrifices and sometimes things seem unfair, but this is a war, Kyle, and I can’t do anything about that.” He pauses and Kyle realizes he’s waiting for it to sink in. “But you can. Kyle, you can change the way this war ends if you successfully complete this task; you can save Star and Marcus; you can make sure your parents didn’t die in vain. We need to send you into the past to save a young woman, to save my mother.”

Kyle doesn’t know much about politicians, but his parents used to say that they used their words to fool people into believing what they wanted, that they used guilt to spread their power, and what John has just said makes him believe that John would make a really good one if they still needed them to run the country.

“Why your mother? Why not send me back so I can destroy Cyberdyne?”

“You need to make sure that I’m born. I’m a vital component to how we’re going to win this war. Nothing else matters, so long as I’m created.”

Kyle is angrier than he’s ever been in his life, it makes the anger he felt towards Marcus seem like a petty squabble, and it takes a few deep breaths to make sure he doesn’t just scream at John. With a deadly even voice, he says, “Who made you God, Connor? That’s what it sounds like to me; it sounds like you’re doing His work. Let me tell you something, John, I’ve never been much of a believer, so you’re going to have to get some other sheep to start your flock.”

Ignoring John’s protesting yells, Kyle leaves the room and practically runs back to his own, where he finds Star and Ellie still asleep. Silently, he creeps back into bed, pulling the covers up to his chin, as though hoping that somehow they’ll be able to protect him from John’s fury that he knows awaits him in the morning. The noise of his rapidly pounding heart keeps him awake, but he thinks that as long as it keeps beating, things’ll be okay.

*

When the morning finally arrives, John doesn’t hunt him down like he’d feared he would. Breakfast is quiet and lunch even quieter. Kyle tries to keep his thoughts on Marcus’ operation, hoping that he’ll wake up just so he’ll have someone to talk to; he’s going to explode if he has to keep this information bottled up inside. Kyle doesn’t hear any news all day, not even in the mess hall, where news and rumors alike spread like wildfire, but he’s too afraid to try to sneak to Marcus’ room, in case John decides to prowl the hallways.

*

The next day, it completely catches him off guard when he leaves his shower cubicle and almost walks right into Marcus, as the other man heads, wearing just a towel around his waist, into the stall next door. When Marcus notices him, he stops and turns towards him — probably to tell him to mind where he’s going — but Kyle drops all previous pretenses of being upset at him and throws his arms around him, pressing his shower-warm cheek against Marcus’ chest. Marcus goes rigid under the assault, but after a moment, he starts to pat Kyle’s back awkwardly, as though he has no idea how to comfort a teenager.

“You’re all right,” Kyle says, voice muffled by flesh.

“Yeah, kid, I’m all right.”

Kyle pulls back enough that he can look Marcus in the eyes. “What was wrong with you?”

The way Marcus shrugs silently says that he doesn’t know and doesn’t care, but after a look from Kyle, he answers anyway.

“They said that I’d been injected with a fluid that had some ant-sized machine in it. The bot shut most of me down and I went into a coma-like sleep. They opened me up, ransacked my insides, found it, and took it out, so I guess it doesn’t really matter now.”

Kyle frowns, angry at Marcus for being so blasé about his own life.

“You, asshole!” he says, pulling back completely and punching Marcus on the chest with enough strength to leave a red mark on his skin. “Some of us were actually worried about you, you know, so don’t act like nothing happened!”

He moves to punch Marcus again, but this time Marcus catches his fist and pushes, making Kyle stumble back a few paces from the force. Kyle continues to glare at Marcus, but after a beat or two, he can’t keep it up. His face falls and his eyebrows scrunch up.

“You scared me,” he says quietly and steps forward to hug Marcus again, because Marcus is soft, warm, and, most importantly, not dead. This time, Marcus puts his arms gently around his back and squeezes just enough to make him feel safe and protected.

A loud catcall comes from behind and Marcus lets him go like he’s a scalding hot coal. Kyle flushes and tries to look everywhere but Marcus’ face. His eyes land on Marcus’ sternum and he finally notices the cut running down it. Without thinking, he reaches his hand out and runs his finger ever so gently over the almost-healed wound.

“Does it hurt?” he asks, not taking his eyes off the skin under his hand.

“No, but when I look at it it does, just because I expect it to. Guess that proves there’s still a part of me that’s human, huh?”

Kyle hums distractedly in reply, but keeps sliding his finger up and down the purpled skin. Apparently, it annoys Marcus because after a few moments he slaps Kyle’s hand away and says, “Knock it off”.

Kyle draws his arm back and blinks. “Sorry,” he says, more sorry that he doesn’t sound sorry at all.

“Go get dressed,” Marcus orders him, before moving to step into the shower cubicle they’re standing next to. Kyle watches as Marcus’ back and shoulders flex as he moves out of sight, then almost jumps in fright as Marcus’ head pokes around the tiled wall.

“And get something to eat, Kyle, you’re as thin as a rake.” His head disappears again and Kyle is left wondering if he’ll ever have muscles like the other men in the base, or if he’ll just stay a weedy-looking nineteen year-old for the rest of his life. He hopes that one day he’ll be good looking, like Marcus.

It isn’t until he’s halfway through his oatmeal that he realizes what he’d been thinking. He stops, his spoon raised halfway to his mouth, and tries to remember when he started thinking about Marcus like that.

If he’s honest with himself, he’d rather deal with Connor than his feelings.

*

Kyle regrets ever thinking that and he wishes he could take it all back when John sits down at his table just as he’s scraping his spoon around his bowl, searching for any soggy, leftover oats. He tries to act as if he hasn’t noticed him, hoping that it might get him to go away, but John just covers his hand with his own, stopping him from continuing to practically grind his spoon through the bowl and into the table below. When Kyle finally looks up, John doesn’t say anything, but he releases Kyle’s hand and reaches into his jacket to withdraw a small white square from an inside pocket. It piques Kyle’s interest enough to get him to put his spoon down and lean forward slightly.

John sets it on the table and slides it towards Kyle, who realizes that it’s some sort of artifact from the old world, pre-Judgment day. It’s glossy, but the edges are worn, as though someone has spent most of their life staring at it and hoping for something beyond their control. Delicately, Kyle reaches a hand out and picks the photo up, careful not to get his dirty fingerprints all over it. He can feel John’s eyes boring into him as he focuses his attention on the paper in his hand. There’s a young woman, probably in her early twenties, with wavy blond hair and a face that would be prettier if she were smiling.

“Who is this?” Kyle asks, not taking his eyes off the picture.

“That’s my mother.”

“Oh,” is all Kyle says because he has no idea what else he could say to that.

Just as quickly as he had arrived, John stands and starts walking away.

“What about your picture?” Kyle calls after him, but John just half-turns and says, “Keep it,” distractedly. Kyle looks at the photo one last time before he tucks it into his breast pocket, wondering if it’s part of a trick John is playing on him.

Marcus jolts him out of his reverie as he sits in the seat John had just occupied and says, “What was that? A love note?”

Kyle glares at him. “No,” he says with more force that need be. Marcus just smirks as though he knows something Kyle doesn’t and pushes his bowl of breakfast towards Kyle.

“Thought you might want seconds,” he says, as though he hasn’t just blatantly stolen food — a serious offense in the base. Kyle looks around nervously.

“Don’t people know you can’t eat?”

Marcus shrugs noncommittally and watches him as he takes the first cautious spoonful. No loud sirens go off and no one tackles him to the floor, screaming that he’ll be taken ‘round the back of the sheds for daring to overindulge for once in his life. He doesn’t know why Marcus takes such risks for him, but it’s the nicest thing anyone’s done for him in a long while.

“Thanks,” he says around a mouthful of food.

“Don’t mention it.”

*

Kyle doesn’t see Marcus for the rest of the day, but after dinner, he decides to try to find him because he still wants to tell him about John playing God.

His first knock at Marcus’ door doesn’t garner any response, but the second, much louder one, does.

Unexpectedly, it’s Blair that opens the door and by the way she holds it so only her face — which is a little bit more flushed than usual — is visible tells Kyle that she might not be completely decent. He’s not completely sure, but he thinks he stutters some sort of apology before fleeing down the corridor to his own rooms, his face burning with so much embarrassment that it actually makes his head throb. It’s worse than the time his dad gave him a sex talk when he was sixteen.

He bangs the door shut and locks it before throwing himself face down on his bed.

It was so stupid of him, he thinks, he shouldn’t have forgotten about Blair. He’s always known something was going on between them, but this completely confirms his suspicions. He’s never hated being a hormonal teenager more than this moment, because his traitorous mind starts creating images of Marcus pinning Blair beneath him, covered in a sheen of sweat and barely-containing his inhuman strength. He pictures Marcus biting Blair’s shoulder until she’s marked with bruises that say ‘Property of Marcus Wright’, and it’s at that point that he begins to seriously doubt his mental state. He shouldn’t be thinking about them like that, certainly shouldn’t be slipping a hand into his jeans, and definitely shouldn’t be telling himself that it’s just Blair he’s thinking of, not Marcus. But he’s sure that when he comes, the picture in his mind is of Marcus calling out his name as he follows him over the edge, which is why he thinks he’s going to have a hard time meeting Marcus’ eyes tomorrow.

*

Kyle spends the next day avoiding Marcus, even going as far as ducking into a supply closet when he sees him chatting to someone at the end of a corridor. He trips over a bucket and gets a mop handle pushed painfully into stomach, but he holds his breath and waits until he’s sure Marcus has passed before leaving the small room.

He locks himself in his quarters for the rest of the day, not even leaving when it’s time for dinner, not even when Ellie knocks cautiously on the door and asks him if he’s okay, and not even when Marcus stops by and jokes through the wall about Kyle being an antisocial teen.

*

Kyle actually manages to avoid Marcus for four days before he’s caught, which he thinks he deserves a medal for because it’s quite a feat in a base so small.

*

“Hey, kid. Kyle!”

Kyle turns towards the voice, biting the inside of his lip to keep himself from blurting out some messed up confession right then and there. Marcus walks closer, making his way out of a doorway down the hall and to the left of where Kyle is standing.

When he’s just a few feet away, he says, “Ellie told me this morning that you’ve been a bit of a dick lately.”

“Wha—? No she didn’t.” Kyle knows Marcus is lying because Ellie wouldn’t use language like that, plus, he likes to think that she’s his friend, and friends don’t say things like that about each other.

“Not in those exact words, but she says you’ve been acting strange. I won’t make a habit of this, but do want to talk about it?”

Kyle thinks about shaking his head negatively, but then he realizes that Marcus has just created the perfect opening for him to talk about what John told him about having to go back into the past, so instead he nods and follows Marcus as they walk towards the recreation area.

After looking around the empty room, Marcus flops backwards onto a sofa carelessly. Kyle takes the other seat, sitting gently, and curling his legs up under himself. He doesn’t really know where to start, but Marcus is staring at him, the look bordering on impatient, like he has better things to do than listen to some teenager spill their guts. Kyle feels so young under the gaze, but he takes a breath, and then begins to recount his run-in with John.

Marcus doesn’t say anything for a while after Kyle finishes talking, but even Kyle can see that he’s skeptical.

“Let me get this straight: John Connor is going to send you into the past?”

Kyle nods slowly, part of him waiting for the moment when Marcus just laughs in his face and tells him he needs to stop eating bad food before going to sleep.

“And Connor has a time machine, does he?”

Kyle shrugs. “Dunno. Maybe.”

Marcus seems to contemplate this, though to Kyle it looks a lot like mockery, like he thinks it’s all one big fucking joke. Kyle suddenly remembers the picture John had given him in the mess hall and takes it out of the pocket in which he left it. He shoves it at Marcus, saying, “Look!”

Marcus takes the photo, but keeps his eyes on Kyle. “I believe you, kid. Shit, look at me; I’m half human, half robot, I missed the good part of the last two decades because I was dead, but here I am. I’m past being a skeptic.”

Kyle can’t help but laugh, the first time he’s genuinely laughed since he arrived at the base, and it feels good, like, in spite of everything, humanity has a chance. As long as there are still things to laugh about, there will always be a glimmer of hope. Marcus smiles lopsidedly, and Kyle is sure he’s holding back from either laughing or crying at the truth he’s just admitted out loud.

Marcus passes the photo back to Kyle — who tucks it safely into his pocket again — then sobers up and says, “Look, if that’s what he’s got planned, why not just go with it?” Kyle’s smile drops from his face and his brows furrow. “There’s nothing here for you, Kyle. Truthfully, I don’t think there’s a future here — doesn’t mean I won’t fight, but I sure as hell don’t expect things to go back the way they were before this shit all started. It might be your only chance for a normal life, whatever that means nowadays. Don’t you want to experience a better world for those people who can’t?”

Kyle looks at Marcus, shocked that he’s doing a pretty good job convincing him that it might be a good idea after all, but there’s something odd about Marcus’ words, because his speech sounds more like something John would say.

“Did John put you up to this?” he asks angrily, standing up, and now it’s Marcus’ turn to look shocked. Marcus follows suit, standing up and not looking so careless now; he’s holding himself as if he knows just how small he’s making Kyle feel.

“Is that what you want to believe? Would that make it easier for you to say No, because you already have a grudge against him? Fuck, Kyle, I might have been in prison for one too many years, and I might be part machine, but I can actually feel, you know; I still have emotions, I can still care for people. You’re a great kid, you were just born at the wrong fucking time. You need more in your life than just hiding and fighting. Don’t you ever get tired? Because I’m exhausted as hell and I’ve only been awake for a month.”

No one’s ever said those sorts of things to him. No one’s ever made him feel as though the world might be a little bit worse if he died, and he can’t help it when tears prickle at the corners of his eyes. Marcus is right: he’s ever so tired of fighting, and it all pours out of him, just like the blood did from out his nose when he first learned to fire a shotgun and accidentally biffed himself in the face with the end when he wasn’t prepared for the strong recoil. He was eight then, and still thought that life was just a game, but now, he’s tired of playing because it always seems like he’s about to lose.

When the first tear escapes his left eye, Marcus says, “Kid, the truth hurts and all, but there’s no need to cry. I don’t know what to do —” He stops talking when Kyle steps forwards and wraps himself around him, pushing his face into Marcus’ shirt to hide how wet it is. Kyle doesn’t know what comes over him, but when Marcus tries to comfort him by rubbing his hand up and down his back, he gets worse, his silent crying turning into loud sobbing.

He clings onto Marcus as though he’s the only gravity left to keep him planted firmly on the ground, and, in between sobs, hoarsely pleads, “Don’t make me go back,” into Marcus’ shoulder.

Marcus’ hands stop moving, as though he’s stunned that Kyle would think he would force him to leave.

“I’m not going to make you leave, Kyle, it’s your own decision, it’s your own life. I just think there can never be a place that’s worse than the world we’re in now. You might as well get the fuck out while you can.”

“But what about you?” he whispers so quietly he only just hears it himself.

“Me? Who gives a fuck? I’ll outlive you all; I’ll be the only one left, standing alone, celebrating the victory that got us nowhere.”

The fact that Marcus says it as a throwaway comment breaks Kyle’s heart and now he’s crying, not just for himself, but Marcus, too. Marcus goes silent, as though either he’s run out of things to say, or he’s just afraid of making the situation worse. He just keeps on rubbing Kyle’s shoulders, running his hand up the back of his neck to card his fingers through the ends of his hair. It soothes Kyle, like the way his mother’s gentle humming used to, and slowly his cries subside and he’s left sniffling and feeling completely worn out. As if sensing the calmness washing over Kyle, Marcus lets his hands drop to his sides and Kyle steps out of his arms, rubbing at his eyes with embarrassment.

“Sorry,” he says, voice gravelly, motioning to Marcus’ shirt which now has dark smudges over it from his tears.

Marcus shrugs and says, “Whatever, it’s just a shirt,” so nonchalantly that it makes Kyle’s chest ache again. He wipes his face with his sleeves and looks back up at Marcus.

“I’ll go find John and tell him I’ll do it, though not for him, but for us, because we have to take care of each other. That’s what it’s always been about. We keep saving each other because that’s the only thing we can do these days.”

*

John says there’s something off with the time machine’s coordinates, but that it should only take a week or so to fix. A week is more than enough time to say goodbye, but he’s going to need more than that to recover, because he’s sure he’s going to break Star’s heart, and that’s something he can’t bear to think about.

John says that what Kyle is doing is heroism, but Kyle doesn’t think that’s true because he’s running off to live in a much better world, while everyone else gets left behind. That sounds more like cowardice to him.

*

The next time Kyle tries to avoid Marcus, it isn’t because he fantasized about him while jerking off, it’s because he might have accidentally got himself beaten up and he’s afraid Marcus will think he’s weak for not being able to stand up for himself. Unfortunately, tries is the operative word, and he doesn’t quite fully manage it, because Marcus calls his name from a few feet behind him, as Kyle limps towards his room, clutching at his ribs.

“Hey! Kyle!”

Kyle winces, cursing his bad luck, then turns to face Marcus. Marcus’ frown seems to fold in on itself more and more, the closer he gets to Kyle, obviously from seeing the state he’s in.

“What happened to you?”

“Nothing,” Kyle mumbles, hating the way the blood tastes in his mouth as it dribbles from his nose across his lips.

“Sure as hell doesn’t look like nothing. Who did this to you?”

“Just some guys.”

“Good job there aren’t many guys here, or else that information would be completely useless.”

Kyle has always admired Marcus’ sarcasm, and in moments like these, it makes him feel comfortable because the whole time he’s known him, Marcus has always been the same way. The world might change around him, but Marcus never does.

“Can we go somewhere quieter?” Kyle asks, because although he knows the news about his beating will spread before dinner is served, he feels he needs to give Marcus the real story before it’s twisted and mutated in the long game of gossip telephone.

“Right. How about we clean you up first? Do you remember the way to the medbay?”

“No!” Kyle shouts, before reigning in his outburst. “I mean, I don’t want to go there. If I did, don’t you think I’d be healed up by now?”

Marcus eyes him warily, but gives in with an exaggerated sigh. “I will never understand you, you know that? Come on.” He tugs at Kyle’s elbow and all but drags him to the bathroom facilities. Once inside, Kyle watches as Marcus grabs a handful of paper towels and soaks them with cold water from a tap. Without being told, Kyle hops up onto the neighboring sink and swings his legs restlessly, trying to keep his mind off his painful face. Marcus stares openly at him and he wonders if he looks half as bad as he feels. He twists to get a look at himself in the mirror, but Marcus slips a hand up the side of his face and stops him.

“It looks worse than it probably is. There’s no need to worry yourself by staring.” Kyle wonders how many times Marcus has done this for someone, but stops thinking and starts squirming when Marcus roughly scrubs some of the dried blood off his temple, next to his still-bleeding split eyebrow.

“Ow! Gently!” he complains and Marcus huffs at him in annoyance, but softens his ministrations anyway.

“You going to tell me what happened, yet?”

Kyle closes his eyes because he thinks it’ll be easier to not have to look at Marcus as he explains how he got into this mess.

“I dunno, it was just a couple of guys. They thought — well, they said I was your bitch.” He opens his eyes again and watches Marcus’ reaction — he’s slightly disappointed when there isn’t one.

“Well you are, so what’s the problem?”

Kyle punches Marcus in the shoulder, rather warmed by the fact that Marcus jokes to make him feel better, and says, “That’s not funny,” even though he’s laughing as he objects. The pain across his knuckles flairs up again and he pulls his hand back to pick at the skin that split when he socked one of his attackers in the mouth.

“Looks like you got a few good hits in yourself,” Marcus says, nodding his head towards Kyle’s hands.

“Yeah, I guess.” He grins, even though it makes his nose feel like it’s on fire. “I knocked a tooth out of one of them.”

Marcus laughs, his breath blowing over Kyle’s face, helping to dry the blood on his lips further. “Right on.”

Kyle falls silent for a moment as Marcus moves to clean up his busted lip and the blood that’s made its way over his chin and down his neck. With his head tilted back, looking at the ceiling, he says, “They beat me up because they thought I was queer.”

Marcus doesn’t reply until he’s finished cleaning Kyle’s throat, but as he turns to toss the bloodied paper towel into the trash, he asks, “And did they think right?”

Kyle lowers his chin back down, so he can look at Marcus, and he shrugs. “Honestly, I don’t think we get much of a choice nowadays. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

“Kid,” Marcus pauses as though he’s thinking too hard to talk at the same time. “That might be the most creative way I have ever heard that expression used.”

The fact that Marcus doesn’t just punch him in the face like the last lot of people did helps Kyle to relax. Just to make sure, he asks, “You don’t care then?”

“It’s like you say, we don’t exactly have a lot of women about—”

“Though you’ve already snagged one of them, haven’t you?”

“If you mean Blair, then you’re wrong. That woman is free to do as she pleases, we just happen to agree that sex keeps the morale up.”

Kyle contemplates Marcus’ words as Marcus finishes cleaning his nose. When his face is blood-free, Marcus says, “Okay, kid, you’re done”, and Kyle jumps down from the sink to land on wobbly knees. Marcus throws away the remaining of the paper towels then turns to Kyle, as though he knows Kyle is about to open his mouth.

“Marcus,” he says the way he used to say his mother’s name when he wanted another piece of the road kill they’d cooked for dinner. “Is it, I mean, would you—” He stops because not doing a very good job of talking. He settles for, “Does it actually boost morale?” because he’s a coward, and can’t bring himself to ask Marcus to prove it to him.

Marcus looks at him as though he’s expecting too much of him. “Kid, I am not about to give you a sex talk.”

Embarrassed, Kyle mumbles, “My dad beat you to it, anyways.”

Marcus is silent for a long while, almost to the point where Kyle starts to think he should just thank Marcus and leave, but then Marcus rubs the back of his neck, obviously feeling awkward, and says, “But, you must have jerked off, right? Doesn’t that make you feel better?”

“Yeah, a couple of times, but, if anything, I felt worse afterwards, not that it didn’t feel great, I just—” He remembers just why he felt worse when a flash of how, last time, he’d been thinking about Marcus pops into his mind. He can feel himself start to turn red and apparently, Marcus notices because he tries to move them away from that train of thought.

“And you must have kissed someone, or at least messed around a bit, right?”

Kyle’s face now feels like it is on fire as the blush deepens. “Not really,” he says in quiet admittance.

“No shit.”

The way Marcus says it makes Kyle feel even younger than he is, and the shocked tone to Marcus’ voice makes Kyle believe that when Marcus was nineteen, he must have already slept with more people than Kyle can count on his right hand. Marcus looks at him in a way that makes Kyle suspicious, because he can’t tell what he’s thinking.

“You’re going to be the death of me, kid, because one day, you’ll make me do something real stupid, real dangerous, and it’ll get me killed.”

“But, I haven’t done—”

“Look, this isn’t out of pity, it’s because you have zero chance with anyone else here, and you can’t go into the past not knowing stuff like this. You might not even make it there; you might be blown to kingdom come when they try to send you back, and no one needs to die without—”

Kyle is so confused. He’s never heard Marcus talk so much without actually saying anything; it’s just nonsense falling out of his mouth, and it makes Kyle nervous. “What are you talking about?”

Marcus fall silent, but Kyle can tell he’s still thinking because his eyes keep flickering in every direction, as though he’s fighting with himself internally. After another beat or two, Marcus practically growls, “Fuck it,” and steps close enough to Kyle that he can grab his upper arms and pull him forwards.

For a second, Kyle thinks Marcus is going to kiss him, and he knows it’s probably just his overactive imagination—but then Marcus does kiss him, and Kyle’s brain doesn’t seem to know what to do when things from his head start spilling over into reality. He knows Marcus’ lips feel soft against his own and that it hurts because of the pressure being placed against his torn skin, but he can’t get his mind to wrap around the fact that it’s Marcus kissing him. The man could knock him out with one solid punch, could probably get any girl — or guy — in the base, but somehow, unknowingly, Kyle has obviously managed to weasel his way into Marcus’ life with enough importance that Marcus would drop it all for him.

Kyle finally begins to wake up from the shock as Marcus gently touches his bottom lip with his tongue. Kyle doesn’t really know what he’s doing, but fortunately, one of Marcus’ hands come up to cup the side of his face. The hand helps to angle Kyle’s face, tilting it so his busted nose doesn’t get hurt again, and Kyle trusts Marcus enough to just follow his lead, parting his lips slightly after Marcus does the same. Having a tongue in his mouth isn’t as gross as he thought it might be; it’s slippery and wet, but warm and comforting, like Marcus is letting Kyle in on a secret he hasn’t told anyone else.

Kyle opens his eyes — he’s not really sure when he shut them — and see’s the familiar crease between Marcus’ brow, like he’s concentrating, or perhaps like he’s uncomfortable. Marcus runs his tongue along the sharp edges of Kyle’s teeth, then opens his own eyes, as though feeling Kyle’s stare burning into him. It’s like Marcus finally realizes what he’s doing — who he’s kissing — as he pulls back sharply and quickly puts a foot or two between them.

Kyle feels like shit when Marcus looks at him as though he’s yelling, ‘You’re so young; you’re just a boy!’, but he doesn’t break the stare. He’s about to tell Marcus that he’s old enough to choose what he wants to do, but something warm makes its way over his bottom lip and distracts him. He sucks his lip into his mouth and realizes that the kiss has split his lip once more and it’s bleeding again.

Marcus’s eyes focus on Kyle’s mouth for just a second, like it has him hypnotized, but then he blinks and clears his throat.

“You look better than you did before, just don’t get in another fight anytime soon, because I won’t do this again.” In Kyle’s mind, this is Marcus saying that he’s got himself in over his head, saying that he has no idea where things will go from here.

When Marcus exits the bathroom and leaves Kyle standing all alone, he feels worse than when he was on his own, trapped inside Skynet headquarters, wondering if he’d ever get to see Marcus again, or if he was destined to die alone.

*

Marcus makes it obvious to Kyle that he doesn’t want to talk about what happened in the bathroom because whenever Kyle even drifts near that subject in the days following, Marcus gives him a warning look that actually puts fear into Kyle. Kyle humors him for a few days by keeping mum in regards to the topic, but it doesn’t stop him from thinking about it. He thinks about how gentle Marcus was, even though on the outside he’s always been rough around the edges. Marcus has always been good to him, making sure he didn’t die when they first met, checking up on him when they arrived at the base, and now teaching him vital lessons in life. Kyle doesn’t think he’s held up his side of the friendship very well — sure he saved Marcus first, but after that, he spent a good deal of time being angry at him for something he couldn’t help. It’s not very fair, but he doesn’t remember the last time anything was.

*

It’s roughly four days before he’s meant to leave, when he stumbles across a room he’s never been in.

It’s much, much larger than his own room; almost the size of the mess hall, but the lights overheard are dim, so it’s hard to see every nook and cranny. Scattered about the place are a few tables that have electronic devices cluttering up their tops and Kyle lets his curiosity get the best of him as he winds his way through them, picking things up every now and then to closer inspect them. His attention drifts as he catches sight of what looks like a door held up by supports in the middle of the room. He moves closer, then walks in a circle around it to try to take in every square inch. It puzzles him, makes him think of the destroyed buildings in Los Angeles, where only the doors remain standing. He reaches a hand out and moves to touch it, but a voice comes suddenly from behind him, scaring him out of his skin.

“You shouldn’t touch that, Kyle.”

Kyle spins around and finds Kate standing in the doorway, watching him.

“Kate!” he breathes, trying to calm his thundering heart. “Where’s Sarah?”

“She’s spending some time with John. Thought I’d come and talk to you about your upcoming trip. It took a while to find you — have you been here before?”

Kyle shakes his head negatively and looks briefly back at the door. “Is this it then? The time machine?”

Kate nods gently and walks forward, only stopping when she’s by Kyle’s side.

“But, does that mean that there’s a door in the past that I’m going to step out from?”

Kate looks at him and smiles. “You know, I never really will understand how time travelling works, but, no, there’s no other door.”

“So, I’ll just materialize out of nothing? What if someone sees me? What if it’s a long way above the ground and I just fall to my death?” He looks at Kate with scared eyes. “What if I get stuck in the space between times?”

Kate drops her smile but places her palm against the side of Kyle’s face comfortingly, rubbing her thumb softly over the yellowed bruise under his eye.

“I really don’t know, but John and his men are doing everything they can to make sure it goes right. They said that you’d be transported to a remote place, so you won’t have to worry about people seeing you. As for falling to your death, the machine is fixed to make sure whoever travels will be closest to a gravitational stronghold in a flattened area with a radius of no less than twenty miles, which in this case, would be the open expanse of a desert.”

She starts to gently run her fingers through the ends of Kyle’s hair and it makes him feel so safe and comfortable that he feels like he doesn’t want to leave.

“I’m going to miss you,” he says, looking at her with honest eyes.

She smiles sadly back. “I’ll miss you too, Kyle. And so will John. He’s not the friendliest of people, but you mean a lot to him and you agreeing to do this reminds him that this war hasn’t been lost just yet. You’re humanity’s knight in shining armor, Kyle.”

Kyle can feel his chest tighten with emotion. He leans in and plants a soft kiss on her cheek as thanks. Before he pulls back, he whispers into her ear. “I’ll do this for Sarah.”

Kate pulls him into a tight hug and he goes willingly. “You’re too a nice a person to have been brought up by war,” she says, but he doesn’t respond.

*

The third day before Kyle’s meant to leave, he breaks the news to Star. He tells her when they have a spare moment together in their room, and he can’t bring himself to speak louder than a whisper. She looks at him like she’s known all along that one day he’d leave her and it makes him feel like the worst man on earth, it makes him feel cheaper than dirt. He says he’s sorry, but he knows he could say it billion times and it still wouldn’t mean anything; he’s abandoning her, but he tells himself that it’s to make sure she has a future, even if it’s just a day or two more.

When Ellie bounds back into the room, Kyle moves to lie down on his bed and lets Star spend the rest of the evening drawing pictures of flowers and houses that haven’t been spoiled by war.

In the middle of the night, he wakes up when somebody — he soon realizes it’s Star — climbs onto his bed. She presses into his side and buries her face into his shoulder. He wraps his arms around her and just holds her until she relaxes against him. Just as he’s drifting off to sleep again, he swears he hears the hoarse whisper of, “It’ll be okay,” against his neck.

*

Kyle doesn’t really know anyone else he wants to say goodbye to, but in the middle of the night before he’s meant to leave, he sneaks out of his room because there’s someone he’ll miss, who he never expected to when they first met. His relationship with Marcus has always been a little bit unfinished, like a car with only three wheels, or clock without any hands, but even so, it’s still been there. Marcus is probably the person he’s closest to — it would be Star, but with only one of them speaking, it tended to be a bit one-sided — and that’s rather a big accomplishment when living in a constantly fighting world.

When he first met Marcus, he was sure he would get one of them killed, but surprisingly, Marcus had been helpful and — he’s not going to lie — kind. Not everyone would stick around to make sure you’re okay when a forty foot harvester rumbles you out of your hideout. Unfortunately, he doesn’t really know how to say thank you for all of that, and when he arrives at Marcus’ door, he still hasn’t come up with anything.

He knocks on the door and hopes — prays — that Blair isn’t with him tonight — please, anytime, but tonight. He’s fortunate, because when the door swings open, it’s just Marcus standing there. Kyle thinks that’s okay, because he can handle Marcus — though it might be harder this time because Marcus is only wearing a pair of boxers and a shirt, looking more defenseless than Kyle cares to admit.

“Do you know what time it is?” Marcus asks, as though he expects Kyle to be wearing a watch. Or care for that matter.

Kyle shakes his head and calls Marcus out by saying, “You don’t really sleep anyway.”

Marcus mumbles something about ‘kids thinking they know everything’ but steps aside, inviting Kyle inside; Kyle doesn’t have to be asked twice; he doesn’t want to be caught and sent back to his room, so he enters quickly.

The room is in exactly the same state it was in when Kyle visited Marcus when he was unconscious, but it smells a little bit more — Kyle doesn’t know what it is — but he likes to think it’s the scent of a man older than nineteen. He breathes deeply, disguising it as a sigh, just to get a better sniff. He wonders if that’s what sex with Marcus smells like.

Kyle tries to make himself look less uncomfortable and awkward by taking a seat on Marcus’ bed, but that only ignites his imagination with images of Marcus on his back, boxers bunched up half-way down his thighs, with his reddening cock in his hand. He clears his throat, trying to rid himself of the thought because he can feel his cheeks burning, and looks at Marcus.

“John says I’m leaving tomorrow before breakfast, so I thought I’d stop by to say —” but he can’t say it, so instead, he trails off, hoping Marcus understands. “You’ve done a lot for me, and Star, and the whole base, and I just wanted to say Thanks.”

Marcus just nods at him stiffly, as though no one’s ever thanked him so openly before.

“It’s going to be weird not having you guys around.” When he says weird, he means horrible; lonely; hell, but he doesn’t tell Marcus this. He folds his hands in his lap and stares at his knees. “I liked having you around, even though I sometimes I acted like I didn’t. I’m going to miss you.”

He stands up, which makes Marcus look warily at him, but it’s only because Kyle can’t speak anymore. He closes the space between him and Marcus, throwing his arms around the other man’s neck to pull him into a hug because this is how his mother used to make him feel better, and he’s sure no one’s ever really hugged Marcus as though he really meant something to them; Kyle does his best.

After a while, Marcus apparently realizes that Kyle isn’t going to budge, and gives in. He winds his arms around Kyle’s back and holds him closer, while Kyle presses his face into Marcus’ shirt and tries to memorize the smell.

Kyle feels like he’s always crying around Marcus — perhaps it’s because he’s not afraid to be vulnerable around him, because he knows Marcus will pick up the pieces, even if it means getting his hands dirty — but he can’t help himself as tears begin to leak from his eyes. The wetness is soaked up by Marcus’ shirt before they can even run down his face, and he knows the exact moment Marcus’ realizes he’s crying because Marcus tightens his grip even more and presses his face into Kyle’s neck.

“You’re really something, kid,” Marcus breathes into his skin, making his lips brush over Kyle’s throat as they form the words. It feels so good, and Kyle can’t stand not knowing how it would feel to have them move with less-than-pure purpose over the rest of his body.

Before he can stop to think, Kyle pulls his head back — which makes Marcus pull his own head back to look at him, obviously wondering why he’s moving — and he takes the chance he’s given to dart his face forwards and press their lips together. He can feel Marcus freeze against him, but it doesn’t stop him from parting his lips and running his tongue over the tight crease of Marcus’ closed mouth. He licks at the corner of Marcus’ lips, and it’s then that Marcus lets go of his back and brings his hands up to Kyle’s shoulders to push him gently away.

“Kid, kid, whoa, stop.” He says firmly, though the last word is muffled when Kyle breaks free of his grip and crashes their mouths together again.

Kyle is strong, enough to force Marcus back a few steps until his back hits the wall, but he also knows that if Marcus really wanted to, he could push him away — probably through the other wall, actually — but he doesn’t and it gives him hope. Kyle pulls back an inch or two, just enough so that he can talk, because Marcus at least deserves an explanation.

“Please,” he whispers, “just do this for me, because I don’t know if I’ll survive this, or if I’ll ever find anyone else that can put up with how I am, but you know stuff, you could make us both feel real good, and there wouldn’t be strings attached, and it would boost morale, but most of all, it would be right because we’ve survived together, and that makes me believe that perhaps we had help from fate or destiny or whatever other bullshit excuses people use, because why else—”

Kyle gets cut off as, this time, it’s Marcus’ turn to close the gap between them. He kisses Kyle the way he did when they were in the bathroom and there’s so much promise in it, it’s filled to the brim with tastes of all the other things Marcus can teach him. Kyle is hungry for more and it seems like Marcus is more than willing to kiss him senseless because there’s a softness in the way Marcus moves his mouth that makes Kyle feel like a collapsing bridge, like all the supports holding him up have snapped and he’s falling headfirst into nothingness.

Between deep kisses, Marcus says, “This isn’t anything more than a fuck,”

Kyle pulls back and nods, ignoring the way his face feels tight from the dried tear-trails down his cheeks, because he doesn’t want to think about anything else right now.

“It’s okay, it's okay; just don’t stop,” and Marcus doesn’t; he changes their position, so Kyle is the one pinned to the wall, and moves his body closer, until all Kyle can feel is Marcus’ body and warmth wrapping around him. Marcus drifts his mouth along Kyle’s jaw, tracing the bone structure with his tongue, then follows an invisible path down his throat. Marcus quickly undoes his scarf, letting it fall carelessly to the floor, and at the juncture where Kyle’s shoulder meets his neck, he sucks and bites just hard enough that Kyle’s skin throbs. It feels like a bruise and Kyle hopes that it is, because then he can have something of Marcus’ to take with him when he leaves.

A noise escapes his throat that embarrasses him, but Marcus whispers, “You’re all right,” in a way that makes Kyle believe that Marcus is just trying to kid himself when he says that what they’re doing is just a fuck. It sounds a lot like Marcus cares more than he’d like to admit.

Slowly, Marcus unzips Kyle’s bomber jacket then pushes it over his shoulders, pulling Kyle away from the wall enough so it can fall to the ground with a soft rustle. Kyle wonders if this is another of Marcus’ tutorials — how to divest someone of their clothes without them caring, because Kyle sure as hell doesn’t. He decides to follow Marcus’ lead and lets his hands drift to the soft hem of Marcus’ shirt. His fingertips curl under the material and brush against skin that’s warmer than he thought would be. The muscles in Marcus’ belly seem to jolt under his touch, but Marcus doesn’t say anything or try to stop him, so he keeps going, slipping his hands completely under the shirt to rest them flat on Marcus’ stomach.

Marcus’ mouth moves back to Kyle’s lips and he bites on the lower one. Kyle can’t help it when he digs his nails into Marcus’ skin as his almost healed lip cracks painfully. As if to try to take his mind off it, Marcus pulls Kyle’s camouflage jacket off, leaving only a black shirt underneath.

One of Marcus’ hands moves gently, as though not wanting to scare Kyle, down between their bodies and begins rubbing Kyle through his jeans. Kyle bucks into the touch, gasping into Marcus’ mouth because no one has ever touched him like this before. He feels like he’s been missing out and he just hopes that Marcus doesn’t stop any time soon. Kyle tries to reciprocate the action by sliding his hand through the front opening of Marcus’ boxers, but Marcus stops him with his free hand before he can feel the soft flesh inside. He whimpers ever so slightly in protest, but the noise is swallowed up, drawn out of Kyle’s mouth and down Marcus’ throat.

Kyle forgets about being disappointed by not being able to stroke Marcus when Marcus shifts his hands and picks him up without so much as a grunt. Kyle quickly wraps his legs around Marcus’ waist, not because he doesn’t trust Marcus to not drop him, but because he wants to be as close to him as humanly possible. The change brushes his ass over Marcus’ boxer-clad erection and makes him moan for the first time, and it’s a noise Kyle wants to hear a lot more of.

“Jesus, Kyle,” Marcus groans against his lips, grinding their hips together slowly enough that it drives Kyle slightly insane. His fingers grapple against Marcus’ back, but it feels like trying to grab onto water: Marcus’ shirt just slips through his hands.

“More,” he orders and Marcus seems more than willing to comply. He spins them around and walks evenly, still carrying Kyle, to the bed, where, after whispering hot encouragements into Kyle’s ear, Kyle lets himself fall backwards, bouncing on the mattress as his full weight lands on it. He shifts so he can rest his head on Marcus’ pillow and waits as Marcus moves to sit on the edge of the bed, next to his thighs. He leans over Kyle’s body and pushes Kyle’s shirt up, revealing his pale, flat belly, which he then licks and presses kisses against. Kyle writhes gently; the sensations albeit tame are enough to tempt his, already half-formed erection, into full hardness.

One of Kyle’s hands move to rest against the back of Marcus’ head, encouraging Marcus to do more, to think about going lower where Kyle really wants him. However, Marcus moves up, instead of down, bunching Kyle’s shirt up under his armpits so he can reach his nipples. Kyle never imagined they’d be so responsive, but they are; they send jolts of pleasure down his body, which curl up in his stomach, constantly building in a familiar way. This is similar to how it feels when he touches himself, but Marcus’ mouth makes it a thousand times better, and he can’t seem to get enough.

“Marcus,” he moans, wanting Marcus’ presence closer.

“So needy,” Marcus whispers against the skin of his chest. Ever so slowly, Marcus shifts further onto the bed, kneeling over Kyle’s waist so that when he sits back, he rests on Kyle’s slender thighs. The weight is just what Kyle wants, even though it pins him to the bed so he can’t even try to buck his hips up because Marcus is so heavy. In this position, Marcus can easily slip Kyle’s shirt off — which he does, making Kyle’s hair stick up in every direction with the static — and lean forwards to kiss Kyle again. When Marcus hovers over him, he can feel a cock that isn’t his pushing into his belly and, god, he wants it so badly he’s practically aching; there’s an emptiness inside him that’s waiting to be filled.

Kyle is a bit nervous, though he’s sure he has the right idea as he tugs at the bottom of Marcus’ shirt, urging the other man to take it off. He’s in luck because Marcus breaks the kiss long enough to sit up and slip it over his head. Kyle’s hands automatically drift to Marcus’ chest because it’s so different from his own; it’s bulkier and more toned. He remembers seeing it in the showers after Marcus woke up after being attacked, but now he knows he’s allowed to touch, he’s allowed to run his fingertips along the grooves where his muscles form rivets in his skin. Kyle thinks that Marcus should be covered in scars from previous skirmishes, but his skin is soft and flawless. There’s a smattering of hair on his chest, which Kyle is envious of — he’s still got the smooth chest of a child compared. There’s more hair trailing from his navel down past the elastic waistband of his boxers, but even without seeing, Kyle knows what it leads to.

Marcus’ hands slide down Kyle’s sides then move quicker than Kyle can keep up with because Kyle’s sure his jeans were just buttoned and zipped up, not that he’s complaining, as now they’re open and Marcus is pushing them down his hips. Marcus lifts his weight off Kyle’s legs and Kyle gets the hint as he uses his feet to slide his pants off the rest of the way.

Kyle should feel helpless lying flat out on a bed in just his worn, graying underwear, but with Marcus, he knows he’s safe and he readily offers up his whole body to the other man. Marcus seems to drink the sight down like a cup of cold water on a blisteringly hot day, but Kyle lets him, lets him trail his fingers over his sides where he knows his ribs protrude, down his stomach, to his hips, which stick out, too.

“Kyle,” Marcus whispers, as though he’s shocked — or maybe that’s disgust in his voice — by his appearance, but Kyle doesn’t understand because he’s looked this way for as long as he can remember. Kyle pushes himself up and distracts Marcus away from the less attractive points on his body by kissing him.

“Just shut your eyes and fuck me, Marcus,” he mumbles against Marcus’ lips.

“Why would I want to shut my eyes? I’m going to watch you come.” Kyle feels like falling apart because Marcus is actually going to do this, he’s actually going to fuck him, and the anticipation is killing him.

“So make me,” he says, and that’s all it takes to get Marcus to peel away Kyle’s briefs, then remove his own boxers. They shift so Marcus is kneeling in between Kyle’s spread legs, his torso hovering over Kyle’s own.

Kyle can’t help but glance down between their bodies. Marcus’ cock is bigger than his own is, but where his is leaking precome from the tip, Marcus’ isn’t. It dawns on him that he already knows why: all Marcus has is a heart and a brain, not anything to let him reproduce.

His thoughts get completely jumbled up, though, when Marcus wraps a firm hand around them both and begins to stroke. It feels nothing like when Kyle touches himself, and, if he had to choose between this and his own right hand, he would take this any day. Kyle grabs a hold of Marcus’ shoulders and drags him down, pulling him into a series of hot, open-mouth kisses as he does.

With one last tug one their cocks, Marcus lets go and, before Kyle can complain, he slides his other hand between their faces and presses his middle and index fingers up against Kyle’s lips. Kyle’s mouth opens expectedly and he sucks against the digits as they push past his lips. Kyle, even though inexperienced, thinks he wouldn’t mind it if it was Marcus’ cock in his mouth instead, but then he realizes that it’s safer if Marcus takes the lead because he’d only mess it up.

Saliva drips down his chin as Marcus pulls his fingers away, but Kyle wipes it away with the back of his hand because he doesn’t want to look like some sort of dribbling baby. Marcus leans in and kisses him, gently this time, and Kyle wonders why, but then — oh! One of Marcus’ fingers press against his entrance and although it feels odd, he enjoys it. There’s a slight burning sensation as Marcus’ finger slips inside, stretching him gently, but Marcus whispers into his ear for him to touch himself, and when he does, he finds himself relaxing and the burning goes away. After a few moments, Marcus slips another finger inside, but he’s excited enough that all he feels is pleasure and it increases tenfold when Marcus brushes against something inside him.

“Oh, fuck,” he whispers, stilling his hand and clamping his eyes shut because if he looks at Marcus, who’s started to get a rather attractive flush across his cheeks, he’s going to come.

Marcus continues to thrust his fingers in and out of Kyle and Kyle can’t stop the babbling that falls out of his mouth; he just feels so good because Marcus has such talented hands.

“It gets better,” Marcus says, though Kyle’s not sure how that can be possible — he’s already on the verge of an orgasm and it’s pretty damn good.

The fingers draw out of his body — Kyle opens his eyes at the loss and tries to fill it by stroking his cock twice as much — but Marcus quickly spits into his own hand and spreads the wetness over his erection, before hitching Kyle’s legs around his waist and lining himself up at Kyle’s opening.

Kyle can feel the hot tip of Marcus’ cock nudging his body and he gasps out Marcus’ name in a plea, begging him to end his torment and take him already. Marcus’ face seems so soft as he stares into Kyle’s eyes and he can’t stop himself as he lets his free hand drift to touch Marcus’ cheek. It’s then that Kyle realizes this will never be just a fuck for Marcus. He can see how much Marcus really cares for him in the openness of his expression and he knows Marcus is doing this because he can’t believe Kyle will leave — as though he’s trying to fool himself into thinking that if he does this, Kyle will stay, because Kyle is the only one who will remain by his side. Kyle is the only one who’s not afraid to call him an asshole when he is one, but not afraid to throw his arms around him and hug him, to cry into his shoulder, when the world doesn’t stop filling their lives with shitty situations and even shittier plans to get out of them.

Marcus blinks then leans down to bite and lick at Kyle’s shoulder, as though he can’t bear to let him know anything else. Slowly, Marcus moves his hips forward, pushing inside of Kyle, who just clings to Marcus’ back and rubs his fingers through the hair leading down the nape of his neck. It feels amazing as Marcus fills him, stretching him open and making him yearn for more. There’s a pause as Marcus, who is now fully seated inside him, waits to obviously give time for his body to adjust to the feeling, but he is impatient and he hisses, “Move!” because he needs Marcus to pound into him and make everything better for both of them.

The first thrust is barely a thrust, more of a roll of Marcus’ hips. The second is short and sharp, but on the third, Marcus pulls almost the whole way out, before pushing roughly back into Kyle. Kyle’s mouth falls open in a silent scream because, yes, oh god, this is what he wants. He clamps his thighs tighter around Marcus’ waist and pulls the lower half of his body up off the bed, trying to get Marcus deeper inside him.

Marcus continues to thrust wildly and to Kyle, it feels like the older man is letting go. Kyle holds on tightly, hoping that maybe somehow if they let go enough, everything around them will crumble away and only they will exist.

Marcus moves a hand to the small of Kyle’s back, helping to hold his waist up, and it shifts the angle of Marcus’ thrusts slightly, causing Kyle a whole lot more pleasure. This time he can’t keep quiet; he lets out a sobbed moan, and a small groan slips from Marcus in apparent response. There’s something inside his body that Marcus keeps knocking against and it makes it feel like his whole body is encompassed by electricity. His cock, trapped between their two sweating bodies, gets rubbed tantalizingly against Marcus’ stomach every time he moves and Kyle doesn’t know how much longer he’s going to last.

“Marcus,” he whispers and Marcus pulls his head back, a worried look on his face, as though he thinks there’s something wrong with Kyle. In truth, Kyle only wanted to get his attention so he could kiss him again, needing to occupy his mouth before he wakes the rest of the base up with his moaning. Kyle crashes their lips together so forcefully that their teeth clack together painfully, but neither of them stops. Everything about what they’re doing is hot, hard, and fast, and that’s the way Kyle wants it, that’s the way he’s used to things happening in his life.

Marcus begins to whisper things against Kyle’s lips, things like, “So good,” and, “Yeah, so tight” which have never been said to Kyle before, but tumbling from Marcus’ mouth, they sound like old friends, like they’ve done this a thousand times. His mouth tingles with the vibrations of Marcus’ voice.

Kyle suddenly becomes aware of the other noises in the room, like the patting of skin against skin and the slight creaking of the bed below them. He knows he should probably be ashamed of such sounds, but instead, it urges him on like the words to a passionate song he once heard a stranger sing, about a land of the free and a home of the brave.

“Fuck, Marcus, I’m gonna—I’m gonna—” but he can’t get the words out because the buildup in his stomach finally reaches a crescendo and it all floods out of him like a dam has just broken. Marcus doesn’t stop looking at him, keeping his earlier promise, but Kyle knew he would; Marcus always has, and always will be, a good man. With a hitched breath, Kyle comes against their bellies, spreading heat where his semen lands, and making Marcus mutter obscenities like it’s going out of fashion.

Kyle’s legs loosen, but Marcus’ hand, still behind his back, keeps him steady as Marcus continues to thrust into him, taking advantage of Kyle’s slacken body, though Kyle doesn’t mind in the slightest. It’s not long before Marcus screws his eyes shut and bites Kyle’s bottom lip as he orgasms. Kyle expects a flood of heat inside him, but there’s nothing.

Marcus slides his hand from Kyle’s back and moves it along Kyle’s thigh until he reaches the spot of skin just behind his knee. He rubs it and Kyle gets the hint that he should unwind his legs from around Marcus. They feel like Jell-O as he lowers them to the bed, but he thinks it could be the best feeling he’s ever felt; he’s warm, sated, and feels wanted — what more could he want?

Gently, Marcus pulls out of him and rolls to the side. It’s a tight fit on the small bed, but Kyle is quite content to just wrap himself back around Marcus. He plans on falling asleep, but when he closes his eyes, Marcus drops a kiss to the corner of his mouth and murmurs his name.

“Kyle, hey, you’ve got to go back to your room. People will wonder where you are if you’re missing and you’ll get us both in trouble.”

Kyle grumbles tiredly, but opens his eyes anyway. “Did I do okay?” he asks, belatedly feeling nervous.

Marcus lets out a huff of laughter. “Yeah, kid, you did okay, more than okay, but you know you’ve gotta go.”

“Five minutes,” he whispers against Marcus’ collarbone, like Marcus is just some alarm with a snooze button.

“Kyle.”

Kyle’s heard that tone before and he knows he’s pressing his luck, but why should he move? This is the last time they’ll see each other; five more minutes can’t hurt, but apparently they can because the next time Marcus says his name, it sounds like he’s really struggling to get the syllables out. Kyle finally sits up, using a hand against Marcus’ chest as leverage, and swings his legs over the edge of the bed. Sitting there, he feels like a man knowing he’s going to his death, knowing that he’ll never see the people he knows again. He watches his toes as he wiggles them, then gets distracted by the drying whiteness on his stomach. He picks at it with his blunt thumbnail and jumps in surprise when Marcus tosses his own pair of boxers at him.

“Clean it off,” he orders, though his voice isn’t harsh at all. Kyle knows it would be unhygienic, but he almost wants to keep the evidence of what they did together on him for as long as possible. Begrudgingly, he wipes himself off and throws the boxers on the end of the bed. When he looks over his shoulder, Marcus is watching him, holding a small bundle of Kyle’s clothes. He drops them beside Kyle, who slowly puts them on.

When he’s dressed — though he takes as long as possible, checking every button and zipper twice, just to make sure — he turns to Marcus, but he’s ready, finally ready, to say goodbye. Marcus flicks a bit of dust off the shoulder of Kyle’s jacket then runs his hand through Kyle’s hair to put it back, relatively in place. When there’s nothing more they can fill the silence between them with, Kyle steps closer and hugs Marcus one last time.

“Bye, Marcus. Thank you,” he whispers into Marcus’ skin because he really does mean it — he means it for everything and anything Marcus has ever done for him, and when Marcus says, “No problem, kid”, Kyle knows it’s nothing but the truth. With one last squeeze, Kyle pulls away and heads for the door.

When he’s just about to turn the handle, Marcus says, “Don’t get yourself blown up, Kyle. Star and I won’t be there to save your ass if you do.”

*

The morning comes far too soon for Kyle, and it’s all a blur as he’s sent for by John as soon as he wakes. Star is still asleep, but they’ve said their goodbyes and he doesn’t need to have his last memory of her to be one where she’s crying. She looks so peaceful sleeping and that’s the Star he wants to remember. He steps out the door and follows a grim-looking soldier to the room Kyle had stumbled across accidentally almost a week ago.

The room is filled with men who must be scientists or something because why else would they be there? He spots John at the head of the room talking to a man in a white coat, but he stops chatting as their gazes meet. He smiles at Kyle and walks over. With a hand on his shoulder, John leads him closer to the door that’s meant to take him to the past, and for a second, Kyle thinks John will just open the door and shove him through. He doesn’t, though; he lets him go when they’re about five feet away and he turns to look at him.

“This is it, Kyle,” he says, and all Kyle can do is nod because he feels as though he’ll puke if he opens his mouth.

There’s a loud noise, like the engine of a HK-aerial, but John doesn’t pay it any attention, so Kyle thinks it must be normal. Above the roar John shouts, “We need to get this done, Kyle. Are you ready?”

Kyle almost laughs at the words. Are you ready? What kind of question is that? No one in Kyle’s position could ever be ready, but that’s not the thing that matters — it’s whether or not he’s able to believe there’s a reason for doing this, whether or not he still has hope — and he does.

He nods at John and John pulls him into a hug and whispers, “Thank you, dad,” into his ear, which can’t be right; he must have misheard, but before he can ask about it, John pulls back and ushers him towards the door. Kyle stands in front of it feeling very much like it’s a closet full of monster and demons, but John’s told him there’s a better world beyond it, a world before the machines, and that’s good enough for him.

John moves a safe distance away them gives Kyle a thumbs up. Kyle knows he has to go now and as he reaches for the door handle, he thinks about what Marcus said about not getting himself blown up and Kyle laughs like it’s the funniest joke he’s ever heard. He laughs because it stops him from crying as he pulls the door open, steps through it, and vanishes into thin air.

Fin


End file.
